Caramel (E150) or not.

Caramel (E150) or not.

Regarding the discussion which whisky contains E150 or not here is a listing.Source for the information is the Swedish “Systembolaget” they have monopoly to sell all liquor in Sweden and according to Swedish law it must be stated if anything artificial has been added to the whisky.

Frankly I personally think it is of minor importance who uses E150 and who does not as long as the whisky taste good. And for those hard core enthusiasts there is always a Cask strength non-chill filtered version that has not been coloured. The distillery must think of the main stream consumer who does not have the deep knowledge of whisky that the enthusiast has. They would probably be swamped with questions if there where to be bottles on the shelf of the same brand with different colours or worse they would lose the sale. I am not defending the distilleries that use E150 I am just pointing to the reasons they do it. I think many people get upset over this subject just because it ruin their picture of the mystique surrounding the manufacture of Single Malt Whisky.

Now there's helpful One thing that I find really interesting about this list is how many of the whiskies using caramel are actually light in colour, so they must be using tiny amounts to ensure that there are no differences in shade between bottlings of a whisky which is quite possibly bought partly on the basis of an association between light colour and lightness/smoothness of taste. Which seems pretty pointless to me. Still, whatever gets you through the night...

As both Gate and Ize know, the discussions on the artificial colouring of whisky have covered the best part of 100 postings on this forum over the past few weeks, indicating how strongly people feel about the subject.

What really seemed to interest people was not so much whether or not colouring was added - for most of us it is the taste and the smell of the whisky that matters, but whether or not it was clear from the labelling that colour had been added.

And if it has to be shown on the label in some countries, why don't the distilleries put the information on all bottles, wherever in the world they are sold?

The E150 is a legaly coloring, wich is used in manufacturing Scotch Whisky etc.There for it's only to give a production of whisky a uniform color.I personally give the preverences of natural color, so you realy see the whisky how it is in reality, guess wich cask they might have used etc. but that's just personal. Like Rudolph said: there are more then 100 replies on coloring. In a way there's nothing wrong with that, but it gives you a feeling that the companies might hide something.....

It's a pity that Gordon & McPhail's Connoisseurs Choice series are coloured to quite the same colour. Although their whiskies are great I am not quite happy with it. Be it a Coleburn, Mosstowie, Port Ellen etc., it's all the same colour. I realised that when I ordered same bottles of the said series an put them in a row on a table.Anyway I think the most important with a bottle is the stuff inside.

Of course if one wishes to avoid E150 in favor of purely the distiller's art, there is always bourbon. My understanding is that they are never allowed to use coloring or anything else artificial. They even avoid used casks (except for Distiller's Masterpiece which has a second finishing cask).